April 30, 2020

Tracking the Curve in Context

I've been looking for ways to illustrate the infection case rate in the County since that is most pertinent to us here in B'game (verses the state, the country, New York City or whatever). Try this local comparison on for size.

The County has 766,573 residents. PacBell-AT&T- now Oracle Park, home of the SF Giants, holds 40,800 people. So if the Giants sold-out 18 games and the 19th game sold three quarters of the seats that would be everyone in the County going to one game. According to Wikipedia, there are "1,500 club seats at the field level behind home plate". If we get around a dozen new cases per day over the next month that the Shelter-in-Place is in effect, the total cases would just fill the Field Club section at Oracle once. That's not once per game--just once. Just some perspective on today's total case count of 1,177.

It also reminds me how much I miss Major League baseball and the local BYBA and BHS games. As the County relaxes some of the outdoor restrictions we need to keep up the SIP discipline, but it may not be obvious how to balance reopening with the impending economic hardships.

Comments

Since the beginning of all the SIP, seeing all of the kids riding their bikes and Razors and skateboards has had me thinking about reopening the schools this summer. You can think of this as summer vacation, reopen through the summer, give them a week off at Labor Day and then get back to it. I thought that was sort of an obvious solution. Not sure if that is what they have in mind when they announce this:

A plan for reopening local schools should be released in early May, said San Mateo County Superintendent Nancy Magee, who is collaborating with county and health officials to determine a strategy for the next school year.

In the immediate term, she said it is yet to be determined how each district will approach the summer months. The comments come in the aftermath of Gov. Gavin Newsom suggesting schools could reopen as soon as July to recover learning lost since campuses were shuttered.

Tuesday’s announcement appeared to catch California’s top schools official by surprise, who said in a statement that “we all heard for the first time today the idea of schools reopening as early as July or August.”

In a bit of sanity that fits in the "just because we can do something doesn't mean we should" file, the City Council passed on the misnamed "safe streets" idea for B'game:

Brownrigg said he felt the initiative makes sense in densely populated communities. But in Burlingame, he questioned whether residents are facing challenges to find open space.

Alternatively, he feared banning cars could pose challenges to senior residents living on identified streets who need to get out of their car and move a barrier or cones each time they go to the grocery store or on another essential errand.

Yesterday we had 18 new cases, but as has been the issue for most days the total went up by a different number: +20 to 1,397.

I have added the criteria for reopening the County's businesses to the post (see above). To Cassandra point, if we are going to count "new cases per day" such that there are less than 1 per 100K, which new case count is it? It probably doesn't matter since that criteria means we need to be below 76 new cases per day. There was only one total outlier day (April 3rd) when we had 78. Every other day since this started has been below 50.

Testing must be available for 1.5 tests per 1000 residents so we will need to be able to test 1,140 people per day. Why? Not sure.

And the kicker is we need to hire 15 contact tracers per 100k residents, so that is another 114 County employees. Nevermind that some epidemiologist assert that contact tracing this far into the game is pointless. I'll bet there will be a new Contact Tracers Union in the County before you know it.

In other local news, buried in the Comicle article about UCSF not getting any of Gilead's remdesivir was the little factoid that:

"The U.S. government has not released a list of which hospitals will be getting supplies, but Conan MacDougall, a clinical pharmacy professor at UCSF, compiled a list after making inquiries at other hospitals and created a map of centers approved and denied.

Most of the available supply of remdesivir appears to be going to COVID-19 hot spots on the East Coast, with one large hospital in Nashville receiving a supply.

The map shows two approvals at medical centers in California, one in the city of San Mateo and one in Los Angeles, but it does not specify which hospitals."

In today’s SF Chronicle, former SF Mayor and Speaker of the House, Willie Brown said June 1 may be the breaking point for people who are being financially (and psychologically) ruined by the shelter-in-place. In an earlier article Mayor Brown notes that Governor Newsom will never declare the state open, but let it slide on it’s own towards a clumsy opening.

I can tell you from just walking around and looking at the roads and freeways that people are starting to bust out.

We can trust our fellow citizens to make good choices based on the time-tested capitalist balance between fear and greed: People will be careful, successful businesses will be clean and safe, and if we need to take a careful step back, most will.

My only mean-spirited idea is to stop paying government and department heads until the state is at Phase Three. This will bring any theorizing in which they engage down to an earthly reality through which most citizens are suffering.

We get a two-day update on Mondays since there is no Sunday update. The County saw 15 new cases on Saturday and 4 yesterday. The new total is 1,464 -- up 39 from Saturday so 20 new cases must be attributed to earlier days.

Yesterday's new case count was 17 and the total increased by 33 to 1,497. Thus 16 new cases were added to prior days, mostly on Sunday's count. 52 people are hospitalized and the age distribution is pretty even. The 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s all have 200-273 cases.

I did not read all the comments due to the topic of re-opening Schools.
Children all in close proximity to each other, NO ability for Social Distancing, Forget About It.
My Sister was a BHS teacher-26 years.
She had a "Cold" more or less, 7 months of the year.
Lets all agree to attempt to see a New Way of education.
There will be a lack of Social Skills, that is a very important component of High School Education.
Nevertheless, we need to consider that this Pandemic may be the first of many to come.
AS

7 new cases yesterday and the total went up by 18 to 1,515. If you recall the point I made in the original post about almost 19 sold-out Giants games, we have just filled Field Club for the first time.

The entirety of (County health officer Scott) Morrow’s order is slated to be released later this week. It will arrive only days after county supervisors asked whether Morrow would break from the pact of Bay Area health officials, who have collectively set the region’s pandemic response direction.
--------------------
The article also notes "There have been 280 cases identified in long-term care facilities, as of last week." That is a data point that has been missing-- 18.5% are in assisted living, so about 1 in 5.

27 new cases yesterday. The total went to 1,575 so there were 12 more added from prior days.

@Cassandra, can you imagine how crowed the Burlingame Drive-in would be if it were allowed to be open while all the movie theaters are closed? With a modern projector and low-power FM radio sound for those who don't want to touch the cool old window speakers, it would be packed!!

23 new cases on Friday (yesterday) for a new total of 1,602. That means only 4 new cases from prior days. Hospitalizations are down to 44 County-wide so a whole bunch of people are recovering at home since there have been 146 new cases in the last week.

The SF Comicle is highlighting the closures and entry limits of various Farmer's Markets around the Bay Area. Apparently there are more than 50 in total. B'game's continue on Thursdays and Sundays with the notation that "the Fresh Market is considered an Essential Business and customers visiting the Fresh Market must wear face coverings. Vendors will not be selling to anyone without a mask, and you will be asked to leave the market if you are not wearing one." from the city.

Post a comment

(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Name is required to post a comment

Please enter a valid email address

Invalid URL

Please enable JavaScript if you would like to comment on this blog.

About the Voice

The Burlingame Voice is dedicated to informing and empowering the Burlingame community. Our blog is a public forum for the discussion of issues that relate to Burlingame, California. On it you can read and comment on important city issues.

Note: Opinions posted on the Burlingame Voice Blog are those of the poster and not necessarily the opinion of the editorial board of the Burlingame Voice. See Terms of Use

Copyright Notice

The information on this web site is protected by copyright. No portion of this web site may be distributed or reproduced by any means, or in any form, without prior written permission. Contact The Burlingame Voice editors for more information.